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Have We Forgotten Belarus?

Five years ago, on March 2, 2011 a public event titled “Free the Belarusian Political Prisoners!” took place in Bratislava, capital of Slovakia.

It was a rather emotional side event of the annual GLOBSEC security conference, which was hosted by Foreign Minister Mikulas Dzurinda, and attended by Slovak politicians and civic leaders as well as well-known members of the Belarusian opposition including Stanislav Shuskhevich, Alexander Milinkevich and Alexander Kozulin.

This solidarity action saw participants displaying photographs of 14 Belarusian political prisoners (including five presidential candidates), which ended up in prison following the fraudulent December 2010 presidential elections. It took place at a highly symbolic place: the memorial to the 1988 Candle Demonstration in Bratislava which, brutally dispersed by police, became one of the most significant public expressions of resistance against the Communist regime in the former Czechoslovakia.